A Venue for Citizen Journalists
Thanks to generous donations from readers, this site is renovated and improved.
Affordability has been a ruse for creating market rate housing.
Represent Us and Our Interests. Please!
Local action in support of a proposal to rebuild nationwide infrastructure
Who’s Superman when you need him? We are.
From Musk’s big investment all the way to local campaigns, political “contributions” will be re-paid. Here’s how.
Private banks are fighting hard to keep us from starting our own state bank. There’s a reason.
To be so manifestly unqualified and yet not be deeply aware of that speaks exactly to the very point of not being qualified.
Chaos likely to ensue. Catastrophe cannot be ruled out.
There is no escape from the deep-throated roar and the clouds of filth produced by these machines.
A perspective from a very old liberal political junkie.
Deeds, not talk, count on Veterans Day
Several days ago, I received the following from Veterans Service Officer (VSO), Liz Witowski, of the Whatcom County Veterans Program (items below in bold are mine). On this Veterans Day, the
An off-budget $5 Trillion National Infrastructure Bank (NIB), along the lines of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) that operated between 1932-1957, means low-cost loans and no additions to the deficit.
Medicare Advantage is NOT Medicare. Medicare is there to provide health care. Medicare Advantage is a business, there to make money.
David Swanson verifies what Jon Humphrey has said for years: good internet access benefits people, cities, counties, and states.
Or perhaps tragic farce or farcical tragedy might be more apt descriptors. Pick one, or both.
After nearly 30 years online, and literally being one of the oldest blogs on the internet, Northwest Citizen needs a major programming overhaul. To do so, we need your help.
The top 20% of commercial banks in the United States control 95% of our total banking assets. Remember “Too-Big-to-Fail”?
The City has created another useless document ensuring nothing changes and mediocre communication services are protected.
Why a vote for Jason Call for Congress is a good vote for conservatives, liberals, Democrats and Republicans. Yes, an unusual idea.
Heaven forbid our reps should attack the main problem, Medicare Advantage, head on. But no. They must nibble around the edges to give the appearance of doing something.
Morally significant double binds force doctors and combat soldiers into identical life and death quandaries, damaging their moral centers. To these two groups we can also add law enforcement officers.
Eric Hirst gives us a brief and clear explanation of the water adjudication process that is beginning now in Whatcom County
“Citing the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the paper  [Less Care at Higher Cost—The Medicare Advantage Paradox] notes that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have overcharged the
Aggressive citizen involvement carried the day.
Build-for-profit, incarceration-inspired housing is destroying our souls.
A 54-photo tour of the ruptured pipe area of the Whatcom Creek explosion taken in July 1999.
The last of the scrap metal is loaded on the ship and it will be gone from our town.
Below is an audio tape of 911 calls, emergency responders’ radio communications, and local radio coverage from June 10, 1999 when Whatcom Creek exploded in Bellingham
Whatcom County’s confusing water rights will be defined by court proceedings beginning now
The foam of secrecy hides all.
If not killed-in-action, they are still dying from the effects of their service in Vietnam.
Local presentations scheduled on a reasonable use framework for water resource management
Broadband-Washing: Greenwashing the Internet
Pacific Northwest organizers join a global campaign to abolish all nukes and push for a city council resolution to start
If the hospitals are smelling a rat, so should Medicare (Dis)Advantage victims (AKA enrollees).
With such a bank in place, we would likely not be scrambling around and asking Congress for rebuild monies, as we are now with the catastrophic event involving the Francis Scott Key bridge on March 26, 2024.
Port of Bellingham commissioners terminate last 13 years of ABC Recycling lease
No public fiber means we can’t compete with big telecom. EVER.

Cascadia Daily News to Begin In January

Cascadia Daily News to Begin In January

Bellingham to get a locally owned and professional daily news publication beginning in January 2022.

Very good news: Bellingham and Whatcom County residents are about to get the urgently needed local, political, and government oversight reporting of a professionally managed daily news organization beginning in January.  David Syre is funding the startup of the online publication and has hired Ron Judd as the Executive Editor in charge of news operations. Judd is a graduate of WWU, a twenty-year resident of Bellingham, a well known local book author, and a reporter for 30 years of the Seattle Times and other news organizations. Judd is super-qualified for this position.

We owners of Northwest Citizen welcome this professional local news publication. We have never pretended to be a comprehensive news organization and are delighted and fully support this new publication. We urge all readers to support this local effort to have a legitimate daily and professional news organization in Bellingham; one that reports on politics and community affairs and is so needed for us to be informed citizens. 

The publication seems unnamed at this point. They will publish a weekly print edition, but will have daily breaking news online.  

You can read the full news release here



7 Comments, most recent 3 years ago

Satpal Sidhu · Lynden
Fri Aug 6, 2021

Wow!  I admire David Syre to support this venture. Our community needs 21st century local news source just like local newspapers flourished in late 1800s and early 1900 all over Anerica. Ron will do a fabulous job!

Fri Aug 6, 2021

Thanks for the news John, It would have been a blockbuster if John Servais was the new head of the news operations!!!!!

John Servais · Fairhaven
Fri Aug 6, 2021

Gene, thanks for the compliment.  Ron Judd is far more qualified and will be accepted by this community.  For 50 years I have put my spare time efforts into prodding the Herald, reporting what the Herald ignored or distorted, and wishing we had a good local newspaper.  The Northwest Passage in the early 1970s, publisher of the Whatcom Independent beginning in 2003, and this NW Citizen begun in 1995.  All were because the Herald refused to cover important local issues honestly.  Ron Judd will bring honest and quality reporting to our town.  He is an excellent choice by David Syre.  

Fri Aug 6, 2021

John, I agree Ron will be great but don’t sell yourself short you and NWcitizen have filled a huge hole in Whatcom County over the years. Now with a population close to 300,000 we really need for people to read about what is going on with there governments. Looking forward to it in retriement and not seeing my name in the headlines!!!!!  

Sat Aug 7, 2021

That is so interesting.    Since Ron Judd is the executive editor of the Seattle Times,   is he leaving them for Bellingham?   I’m also a “Times” subscriber,  and will miss him there,  as so many of their staff have already left.

Ron Judd · Bellingham
Sat Aug 7, 2021

Dianne, Thanks so much. I’m not an editor at The Seattle Times, but have been a reporter/columnist there for a long time. I will be leaving that job to become editor/columnist at the soon-to-be-named Bellingham publication. 

John: Thanks so much for your support, which is quite meaningful for the development team, especially coming from folks who have worked so hard to keep Bellingham’s news vacuum from going full-on black hole. We are excited to join that effort.

Tue Aug 10, 2021

I humbly regret to suggest to all of the above that “full-on black hole” may have already been achieved in spite of everyone’s best efforts.  North of the Chuckanuts is invisible, Vancouver’s southern-most suburb. Free reign for those who can. I too applaud the effort and will also keep trying.  Welcome aboard.

- Commenting is closed -

Cascadia Daily News to Begin In January

Cascadia Daily News to Begin In January

Bellingham to get a locally owned and professional daily news publication beginning in January 2022.

Very good news: Bellingham and Whatcom County residents are about to get the urgently needed local, political, and government oversight reporting of a professionally managed daily news organization beginning in January.  David Syre is funding the startup of the online publication and has hired Ron Judd as the Executive Editor in charge of news operations. Judd is a graduate of WWU, a twenty-year resident of Bellingham, a well known local book author, and a reporter for 30 years of the Seattle Times and other news organizations. Judd is super-qualified for this position.

We owners of Northwest Citizen welcome this professional local news publication. We have never pretended to be a comprehensive news organization and are delighted and fully support this new publication. We urge all readers to support this local effort to have a legitimate daily and professional news organization in Bellingham; one that reports on politics and community affairs and is so needed for us to be informed citizens. 

The publication seems unnamed at this point. They will publish a weekly print edition, but will have daily breaking news online.  

You can read the full news release here



7 Comments, most recent 3 years ago

Satpal Sidhu · Lynden
Fri Aug 6, 2021

Wow!  I admire David Syre to support this venture. Our community needs 21st century local news source just like local newspapers flourished in late 1800s and early 1900 all over Anerica. Ron will do a fabulous job!

Fri Aug 6, 2021

Thanks for the news John, It would have been a blockbuster if John Servais was the new head of the news operations!!!!!

John Servais · Fairhaven
Fri Aug 6, 2021

Gene, thanks for the compliment.  Ron Judd is far more qualified and will be accepted by this community.  For 50 years I have put my spare time efforts into prodding the Herald, reporting what the Herald ignored or distorted, and wishing we had a good local newspaper.  The Northwest Passage in the early 1970s, publisher of the Whatcom Independent beginning in 2003, and this NW Citizen begun in 1995.  All were because the Herald refused to cover important local issues honestly.  Ron Judd will bring honest and quality reporting to our town.  He is an excellent choice by David Syre.  

Fri Aug 6, 2021

John, I agree Ron will be great but don’t sell yourself short you and NWcitizen have filled a huge hole in Whatcom County over the years. Now with a population close to 300,000 we really need for people to read about what is going on with there governments. Looking forward to it in retriement and not seeing my name in the headlines!!!!!  

Sat Aug 7, 2021

That is so interesting.    Since Ron Judd is the executive editor of the Seattle Times,   is he leaving them for Bellingham?   I’m also a “Times” subscriber,  and will miss him there,  as so many of their staff have already left.

Ron Judd · Bellingham
Sat Aug 7, 2021

Dianne, Thanks so much. I’m not an editor at The Seattle Times, but have been a reporter/columnist there for a long time. I will be leaving that job to become editor/columnist at the soon-to-be-named Bellingham publication. 

John: Thanks so much for your support, which is quite meaningful for the development team, especially coming from folks who have worked so hard to keep Bellingham’s news vacuum from going full-on black hole. We are excited to join that effort.

Tue Aug 10, 2021

I humbly regret to suggest to all of the above that “full-on black hole” may have already been achieved in spite of everyone’s best efforts.  North of the Chuckanuts is invisible, Vancouver’s southern-most suburb. Free reign for those who can. I too applaud the effort and will also keep trying.  Welcome aboard.

- Commenting is closed -
A Venue for Citizen Journalists
Thanks to generous donations from readers, this site is renovated and improved.
Affordability has been a ruse for creating market rate housing.
Represent Us and Our Interests. Please!
Local action in support of a proposal to rebuild nationwide infrastructure
Who’s Superman when you need him? We are.
From Musk’s big investment all the way to local campaigns, political “contributions” will be re-paid. Here’s how.
Private banks are fighting hard to keep us from starting our own state bank. There’s a reason.
To be so manifestly unqualified and yet not be deeply aware of that speaks exactly to the very point of not being qualified.
Chaos likely to ensue. Catastrophe cannot be ruled out.
There is no escape from the deep-throated roar and the clouds of filth produced by these machines.
A perspective from a very old liberal political junkie.
Deeds, not talk, count on Veterans Day
Several days ago, I received the following from Veterans Service Officer (VSO), Liz Witowski, of the Whatcom County Veterans Program (items below in bold are mine). On this Veterans Day, the
An off-budget $5 Trillion National Infrastructure Bank (NIB), along the lines of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) that operated between 1932-1957, means low-cost loans and no additions to the deficit.
Medicare Advantage is NOT Medicare. Medicare is there to provide health care. Medicare Advantage is a business, there to make money.
David Swanson verifies what Jon Humphrey has said for years: good internet access benefits people, cities, counties, and states.
Or perhaps tragic farce or farcical tragedy might be more apt descriptors. Pick one, or both.
After nearly 30 years online, and literally being one of the oldest blogs on the internet, Northwest Citizen needs a major programming overhaul. To do so, we need your help.
The top 20% of commercial banks in the United States control 95% of our total banking assets. Remember “Too-Big-to-Fail”?
The City has created another useless document ensuring nothing changes and mediocre communication services are protected.
Why a vote for Jason Call for Congress is a good vote for conservatives, liberals, Democrats and Republicans. Yes, an unusual idea.
Heaven forbid our reps should attack the main problem, Medicare Advantage, head on. But no. They must nibble around the edges to give the appearance of doing something.
Morally significant double binds force doctors and combat soldiers into identical life and death quandaries, damaging their moral centers. To these two groups we can also add law enforcement officers.
Eric Hirst gives us a brief and clear explanation of the water adjudication process that is beginning now in Whatcom County
“Citing the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the paper  [Less Care at Higher Cost—The Medicare Advantage Paradox] notes that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have overcharged the
Aggressive citizen involvement carried the day.
Build-for-profit, incarceration-inspired housing is destroying our souls.
A 54-photo tour of the ruptured pipe area of the Whatcom Creek explosion taken in July 1999.
The last of the scrap metal is loaded on the ship and it will be gone from our town.
Below is an audio tape of 911 calls, emergency responders’ radio communications, and local radio coverage from June 10, 1999 when Whatcom Creek exploded in Bellingham
Whatcom County’s confusing water rights will be defined by court proceedings beginning now
The foam of secrecy hides all.
If not killed-in-action, they are still dying from the effects of their service in Vietnam.
Local presentations scheduled on a reasonable use framework for water resource management
Broadband-Washing: Greenwashing the Internet
Pacific Northwest organizers join a global campaign to abolish all nukes and push for a city council resolution to start
If the hospitals are smelling a rat, so should Medicare (Dis)Advantage victims (AKA enrollees).
With such a bank in place, we would likely not be scrambling around and asking Congress for rebuild monies, as we are now with the catastrophic event involving the Francis Scott Key bridge on March 26, 2024.
Port of Bellingham commissioners terminate last 13 years of ABC Recycling lease
No public fiber means we can’t compete with big telecom. EVER.